1. Authority and organization
You represent that you are authorized to act for the identified vendor and organization. You must keep ownership, membership, contacts, service status, and authorization information accurate and promptly report changes.
2. Profile submissions
Vendor submissions must be accurate, current, and supported by sources you have the right to provide. Folkbench may review, format, translate, annotate, decline, or remove submissions to protect directory quality and comply with law.
3. Test authorization
A vendor must expressly authorize each controlled test target and provide any required test tenant, budget, limits, allowed protocols, and safety instructions. Credentials must be scoped, revocable, and intended for testing. Do not submit production customer credentials or unrelated secrets.
Folkbench may stop or postpone a run when authorization, budget, safety, connector, evidence-storage, or review requirements are not satisfied.
4. Evidence and confidentiality
Raw process evidence remains private and access-controlled unless a separate written agreement says otherwise. Folkbench may retain sanitized facts, result versions, manifests, audit records, and published snapshots needed to explain an evaluation.
Vendors must identify confidential information before submission and must not place secrets in free-text fields, URLs, object keys, screenshots, or ordinary support messages.
5. Review and publication
Participation does not guarantee publication, a favorable result, a ranking, or continuous listing. Folkbench determines whether evidence satisfies the active methodology and publication gate. Vendor statements are labeled separately from measured or calculated facts.
6. Corrections and response
A vendor may submit specific, evidence-backed corrections or explain a material test limitation. Folkbench may correct, annotate, withdraw, or rerun a snapshot and will preserve the relevant review trail. Disagreement alone does not require removal of an accurately described result.
7. License and marks
The vendor grants Folkbench a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use submitted names, marks, descriptions, screenshots, sources, and other authorized material to review, test, translate, operate, and publish Folkbench directory content. The vendor retains ownership of its material.
8. Suspension and withdrawal
Folkbench may pause testing, restrict the workspace, hide or withdraw a snapshot, or end participation for safety, security, evidence integrity, legal, authorization, or repeated accuracy concerns. Published history and audit records may be retained where necessary to explain prior public facts.
9. Relationship to other terms
The Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, active methodology, and any signed order or data-processing agreement also apply. A signed agreement controls if it expressly conflicts with these online Vendor Participation Terms.
10. Data roles and instructions
The vendor is responsible for the data, authorization, and lawful instructions it supplies. Folkbench is an independent controller for its own directory, security, audit, and publication purposes unless a signed data-processing agreement expressly makes it a processor for a defined dataset.
A signed data-processing agreement must define the subject matter, duration, data and data-subject categories, documented instructions, confidentiality, security, subprocessor authorization, assistance, transfers, deletion, and audit terms. Do not place customer personal data in a vendor submission while that arrangement is missing.
11. Security and incidents
The vendor must use scoped, revocable test credentials, apply least privilege, maintain its own access controls, and notify Folkbench promptly of a suspected compromise, target change, unauthorized run, or data incident. Folkbench may stop a run or quarantine evidence while investigating.
Folkbench will use server-only secrets, private evidence storage, controlled object keys, bounded streaming, checksums, redaction, audit records, and publication gates when those capabilities are activated. These terms do not promise that a Beta foundation is production-ready.
12. Confidentiality
Each party must protect the other party’s non-public information with reasonable care, use it only for the agreed purpose, and disclose it only to personnel or service providers who need it and are bound by confidentiality duties. Confidentiality does not apply to information that is public without breach, independently developed, lawfully received without restriction, or required by law.
Raw process evidence remains private by default. A party requesting public use must identify the material and obtain the required written authorization; publication of a sanitized fact does not make the underlying evidence public.
13. Return and deletion
After a run, withdrawal, or termination, Folkbench may delete or anonymize vendor-provided material within the approved retention schedule. It may retain compact published facts, manifests, audit records, legal holds, and security records needed to explain a public result or meet legal duties.
A vendor may request deletion or return through the contact page or the workspace. The request is subject to identity and authority checks, evidence integrity, backup windows, and any signed agreement.
14. Fees, warranties, and liability
Vendor participation is not a promise of ranking, traffic, purchase, revenue, or favorable publication. No fee, paid placement, refund, subscription, or service-level commitment exists under these online terms unless a separate signed commercial agreement says so.
The vendor represents that it has authority and rights for its submissions and test authorization. The Terms of Service liability limits and disclaimers apply unless a signed agreement expressly replaces them; non-waivable rights remain unaffected.
15. Acceptance and order of precedence
Vendor acceptance must be recorded against the exact version in the workspace or a signed agreement. Viewing this page does not authorize a test, create a data-processing relationship, or change a publication result.
If documents conflict, the order is: a signed data-processing or commercial agreement for its subject matter, the signed vendor acceptance record, these Vendor Participation Terms, the Terms of Service, and then the active methodology. A newer version applies only after the required notice or acceptance.